


Weary, Stale, Flat, Unprofitable

by soleta



Category: Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soleta/pseuds/soleta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrea is a little lost following the events of Magic Bleeds. She's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weary, Stale, Flat, Unprofitable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeccaStareyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeccaStareyes/gifts).



I had a mule in the Order's stables who was as near mine as made no difference. None of the other mules would go near her as long as she had my scent on her; the stable-hand wasn't sure what that meant, and he didn't linger around her stall, so I did her currying and cleared her stall myself. On some days it was the only quiet time I got, usually when one of Kate's jobs went postal. Right now, though, the quiet wasn't welcome. I kept filling it with my thoughts.

I hadn't seen Kate since her aunt trashed half of Atlanta. I wasn't sure I was welcome in the Keep. I kept up on the gossip through Aunt B, who very carefully avoided mentioning Raphael. I could see the holes in her stories, though, and I gathered that he wasn't exactly Princess Sunshine. I couldn't blame him. Neither was I.

With a sigh, I hung up the curry comb and saddled Jess. I had to pick up parts for the armory from a foundry downtown, and it was just my good luck that the magic was up.

* * *

It was approaching dusk as I rode Jess out of the stables and turned toward the heart of Atlanta. Magic waves had taken their toll on the horizon, turning the city skyline into the jagged teeth of a city tearing itself down. Magic did a number on high-rises, since they were the most visible symbols of the aggressively technological society we had been before magic came back into the world.

I tied Jess up outside of Sloan's workshop and slipped my hand into my bag for the package inside. I was trading the work on a badly damaged and now fully functional antique Peacemaker for the parts I needed. I would have done it for free for the chance to work on something so venerable, but when your superior officer isn't inclined to approve your budget requests, you have to make do where you can. It wasn't fair to take Ted's attitude out on Mauro and the others.

I pushed into the shop, setting the bell over the door ringing, only to find the front room empty. The front was Sloan's storefront and display room, and it wasn't very often that you found Sloan there. She was a working gunsmith and her forge was her best friend. I could hear it roaring.

I'd been there more than once, so I slipped under the flap in the counter and headed down a narrow hallway toward her workhouse. Hers was out back, situated on a concrete slab poured before the Flare. It was prime space for a forge.

"Sloan?" I called, pushing open the back door. "Sloan, it's Andrea." There was no answer; she probably couldn't hear me over the forge. I could feel the heat like a slap in the face.

Something wasn't right.

I could hear the voice of the forge, and it was constant and steady. That was wrong. A smith never left her forge alone when it was hot. My hand was on the butt of my SIG-Sauer quicker than thought, and I drew it and nudged the door to the forge open with my foot. "Sloan?" I called, not really expecting an answer.

I knew the basic layout – forge and fuel against the far wall, anvil in the center, long workbench along the left wall, a veritable labyrinth of storage shelves and bins continuing past me and to the right. A glance was enough to confirm that something was wrong. Sloan would never leave her forge in full blaze when she wasn't there. That way lay the 2041 Great Fire of Atlanta.

The clear space in front of me was empty, so I covered the warren to the right while I gently set down the Peacemaker and snapped the second SIG into my left hand. I felt better with both guns out. They'd never failed me.

The maze was the only place I hadn't checked. Sloan could be in there; I'd smell it if there were blood and there wasn't, but she could be hurt. Or dead. I knew all of that, but the idea of turning my back on the forge was frightening me beyond all reasonable expectations. There was something _wrong_ with it. Keeping one SIG trained on the shelves, I found the other gun aiming at the forge without my consent. Of course I could move it, I reassured myself. I just didn't want to.

"That is a pile of shit, Andrea," I said out loud, just to hear the sound of my own voice. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. My claws lengthened inside my fingers, and my skin itched – my beast wanted out. She could feel a fight coming. So could I.

Everything I was feeling centered on the forge itself. The anvil was inconsequential, so I edged past it, toward the forge wall. The heat was glorious, and I could feel the fire warming me through, all the way to my bones, until I felt like I was going to catch fire myself. It felt like a warning. I stopped, still three feet away from the open face of the forge. Sloan's forge was designed to catch the heat, to trap it and keep her metal hot. Heat dissipation to this degree should have been impossible.

I'd never been this close to her forge before. At this distance, I could see fine engravings twining up the sides of Sloan's forge that I'd never seen before; men in loincloths building two rounded towers, smiths hammering spears and swords, a bright shining man leading humans in fighting faceless demons, and a wounded man bathing in some sort of spring. In the next panel, the man was healed.

I'd never wished to be Kate so hard in my entire life. Mythology was not my strong suit. I can pin a fly to the wall with a bullet. That's what I do.

Given the choice to stare at the forge until something happened or to check the warren for Sloan's dead body... Well, that wasn't a choice at all.

* * *

I didn't find Sloan's dead body in the warren. I did find a mess, which was again unlike Sloan. Someone had gone through and picked individual things to throw around; I found wire coils, pommel stones, spare ammunition for a number of guns, all Sloan's and all tossed around like garbage. Some of the things had knocked other bins off their shelves, creating a tangle of metal crap. I smelled nothing but dirt; no blood, no creatures, no other humans.

What the hell was going on?

I put my back to the door. I couldn't just leave without knowing what happened to Sloan, but I was out of ideas and out of options.

Unless I put out the forge.

When I thought it, as a roar of anger and a wave of heat blasted me from the forge. I bent over, hands and guns to my temples as I screamed, or I think I did. It might have been in my mind, but after a minute the roar and the heat died away and I could think.

"Fuck you," I said, straightening up and putting my back to the door again. I aimed my SIGs at the forge. "Sloan is my _friend_."

I started forward with every intention of killing the forge any way I had to when the flames roared higher and I stopped. A figure grew dark among the flames and I instantly aimed my guns at her head; it grew larger and clearer until it was suddenly Sloan, walking through the flames as nonchalantly as if she did it every day, stepping out of her forge and grinning at my gobsmacked expression.

"I couldn't let you break my forge, after all," she said, tucking her hands into her smith's apron and smiling. "It holds the way open - I'd never have been able to come home."

"What happened to you?" I demanded, letting my SIGs point away from her face. "I got here and there was a huge mess – I gestured to the shelves with one hand. "And you were gone with your forge blazing."

"I was invited to a very special party," Sloan said, smugness written all over her face – I itched to hit her – before it was replaced with confusion. She started toward her shelves. "I didn't leave a mess, though."

In the end, what could I do but follow?

She ended up with a bucca infestation that cost her a case of prime parts. It took me an hour of hard work to clear the bucca out – it turned out they didn't like cold steel very much. Or smithies. Sloan told me what they were, gave me a case of steel ball bearings and watched, growling, as I flushed them out of some of the most unlikely places.

I took possession of the parts I'd originally come for and started to leave, but I stopped at the door and looked back at her. "I have to know. Where did you really go?"

"Smiths have gods too, you know," she said, grinning broadly. "And we have parties. Really amazing parties."

**Author's Note:**

> Sloan is referring to Fled Goibniu, the feast hosted by her patron god, Goibniu, the smith of the Tuatha de Danaan.


End file.
